Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO ANY WOMAN by WILLIAM BRIAN HOOKER

First Line: NEVER TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE
Last Line: WORTHY YOUR REALITY.
Subject(s): WOMEN;
Never tell me what you are,
Lest I dare to make you less --
Lest I hold the golden star
To my bosom, and confess
Fire and dross and earthliness;
For I know you cannot be
Wholly what you seem to me.

Shine beyond me, calm and high,
Fair to love and far from knowing;
So that, striving to descry
Heaven in you, and slowly growing
Through forgiving and foregoing,
Somehow I may come to be
Worthy your reality.



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